


Tomes

by Sun_bee



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Other, World of Warcraft - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27655121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sun_bee/pseuds/Sun_bee
Summary: An anthology of short pieces featuring my World of Warcraft original characters. Details and notes included with each entry.
Kudos: 2





	1. Dramatis Personae

**Dramatis Personae** , in order of appearance.

Erokar Hale - a male human mage. In the course of his life he barters, borrows, steals and sells power of all kinds. Of late he's become a lich and has, largely, left his mortal life behind.

Arkaedia Prith - a female human mage. Dedicated to the Kirin Tor and driven by her desire to do good recklessly, she is a rising star in the warmage ranks.

Vyneisa - a female quel'dorei 'warlock'. She cultivated her power like ivy climbing an oak and now presides over a portion of Stormwind's black market magic trade.

Julia Blackbrooke - a female human death knight. Once a paladin wreathed in glory, she fell in battle at the first scourging of Lordaeron. A leader before and after death, a protector to whatever end.

Elathus Summerkeep - a male ren'dorei priest. Sometime ambassador of the Alliance after his exile from Quel'thalas. An expert in avoiding obligation, though he tries his best to stay true. 

Rhaelier Roselight - a male sin'dorei death knight. Service to the Lich King smothered the cruel and wretched Scarlet Inquisitor found too extreme even for the crusade. Now that Icecrown has been sundered, the bars of his prison have, too. 

Ballard Duskwing - a male half-sin'dorei explorer. The illegitimate son of Julia Blackbrooke and a roguish elven cad, he was raised in Silvermoon as the ward of the rich and powerful Summerkeep family. Quietly determined to tread his own path through life, even if he is drawn inexorably to the past.

-

These works may feature characters that belong to my friends or characters in Warcraft's canon. Any such instances will be noted per entry.


	2. Then, and now, and then again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arkaedia Prith is a human warmage of the Kirin Tor. Erokar Hale is a lich magister who, once upon a time, had patience for things like teaching lessons. 
> 
> This piece takes place, more or less, circa Mists of Pandaria.

> _ She is a small girl and the horse is bolting. Her fingers burn as they clutch the leather reins that are too big for her hands. Her feet don’t meet the stirrups. Her heart beats so fast she feels like it will burst from her chest and be left behind in the parched grass. Every strike of hooves in the dirt shake her small body from top to toe, but she will not let go. She will not let go. _

Archmage Erokar Hale was not an easy teacher. Rumours flew through the storied halls of Dalaran: disfavour clung to him in as many rich layers as the robes he wore and soon he would be gone from the city altogether. The particulars were lost on the students who had clambered over one another to gain a seat in the last class he might ever give; they were only there to say, ‘I learned from the best’. The worst. The most capricious of mentors. 

> _ The stink of smoke still lingers in the village even two days later. She sits quietly in father’s comfortable armchair as mother recounts the tale. A fire in the field, a young girl falling to her knees and out of sight in the waist-high wheat. She ran towards it, mother said, and I damn near felt a fit of convulsions because she ran away from me. Father finishes the rest. He tells the prospecting mage in purple robes with a golden eye that now they have a froze-solid wheat field instead of an ashen one.  _

“You. Girl, yes, you with the flaxen hair,” he beckoned to the small group and the slender teen that shivered amongst her peers. There was no hesitation (no nervous doubt,  _ me, sir? _ ) as she stepped forward. She slipped between taller shoulders and stood before the Archmage and met his near-black eyes. He was broad and tall, handsome in a way that she knew to be meticulously crafted. Her studious stare made Erokar smirk. “I’m going to give you all a gift, and you’ll be first.” 

> _ Dalaran is beautiful and she is barely twelve years old. There’s never been anything taller in the world than the pale stone towers. She counts them every morning from her dormitory window. She buys a telescope from the gnomish merchant and every evening she watches the guards change at the doors of the Violet Hold. They’re keeping everyone safe, she knows. She wonders if it might not be safer inside that prison, sometimes. _

The Archmage offered out his hand to the initiate. He turned his palm over once, facing it upward. Runes flashed on his skin, spell-words slipping from his smirking mouth. A wheel of light was forged in the air around his wrist, purple and illuminating his jawline from below. “Take my hand. Learn the spell. Never let this insufferable Council cloud your life with uncertainty.” 

> _I’ve brought you some new books, she tells the small vulpine creature, who has just moved into a real apartment at last. She is a little older and she still feels the thrill of subterfuge as she hands the tomes to the man she will come to know is vulpera. He is fluent and she hopes the well-worn copy of_ The Schools of Arcane Magic- Volume One, _plucked from a locked shelf,_ _will be a suitable house-warming gift. He is grateful, she knows, even if his voice never changes from one note to the next._

“And what spell is this? What school, what will happen?” She asked. Demanded. She watched the Archmage closely and he smiled. catlike. Students muttered their disapproval (just do it, Kaedia, take it while you can). She didn’t lift her hand as the wheel of arcane power grew with every turn. 

“You’re right to do this on your own terms,” Erokar said, and the students were chided into silence. “Especially when it comes to breaking the laws of Order.” 

> _ Fel fire rages on a broken shore. Hold, she cries out. Horsemen and infantry and hunters all brace behind the wall of light at her command. Hold! She can feel every pounding demonic fist and crash of artillery shield like it were her own skin. Hold! Perhaps when this shield breaks, her back will too; she’s so tired. Hold! Hold, or the shield will fall. Hold, or they will die. _ __

“A spell on time, then,” Arkaedia narrowed her eyes at the twisting runes. “Will it send me somewhere else?” 

“Is my skin bronze? Have I sprouted wings? I’m no dragon, girl. I cannot send another anywhere.” Erokar’s fingers flexed under the spell-weight of the magic he held. “It is a window. Peer through your own life. Come to know that  _ time _ is not a law you are obliged to obey.”

> _ Her throat is raw but her voice is stolen by the roar of something around her, filling the air and her lungs. There is sand and blood in the maelstrom that rips around her. The sphere grows from her very core as tendrils and faceless things crowd around her. She still isn’t old, but older, and she is strong. She tears them all to pieces.  _

Arkaedia turned her eyes down to the offered palm. She could guess, at the very least, that Erokar would see it all too. It was his spell, after all. She didn’t know what, or when, or who they would glimpse. But there was no time at all in which she wouldn’t take the chance to see. 

She slipped her hand into his. 

  
  
  



	3. Older than speech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vyneisa is an elf who has built her power with guile, blood and sacrifice- often of the ritual kind.

If magic could be beautiful, she didn't know it. 

There was a heavy veil between Vyneisa and any elegance in the craft from the very first moment she wished for something and saw it become true. Dragging her fingers through the guts of crows too slow to escape her bony teenage fingers, crouching over the gore in the shadows of Murder Row to cast her curses for coin. Not made of earth, air or light, it was the space between. It was wretched magic, callous and hot, a world away from the cloud tops of the sky-city where they learned the secrets of the stars. 

She felt the same so many years later. Standing at the bolted door, the wary breaths of beasts at her back, she held the candle in her palm. Wax dripped between her fingers and scalded skin but balms could wait. Would have to wait. The wick was but a burning speck left in a well of molten metaphor. She heard the Kirin Tor weaved with words and runes, that Councils chanted in demon speech and stole their power. Her language was her own. Few could offer rebuttals to a tongue they didn't know. 

The dying flame clung on. While it burned, the defences behind the door would stand. Relics and rites warded off the dark. 

The worgen behind her, the wolf-men she had bartered service from, watched the little light wane with eyes that glowed too. They towered around the elf, hiding themselves in the shadows just as well as any spell shroud could. Magic may have birthed them long ago, but now they were something more. Bestial, barely contained, the curl of their lips over fangs more beautiful than any summoned spell. They were the kind of power she leant on that night. It was them and her, hand in claw, that would see the task done. 

Her fingers flexed, tensing to a grasping claw like the paws that raked over stone in anticipation. At last the candle spluttered. Withered. Blew out in a breeze that ruffled coarse fur and silken hair and snuffed every light inside the building, too. The door latch creaked open.

"Now," she whispered, and the unleashed wolves flowed past her just like the smoke, the excitement of the hunt finally set loose. 

Vyneisa waited at the blackened doorway. There were no screams, the occupants given no time to call out before claws slashed and teeth sank into jugular veins. Within minutes, bloodied men stood where wolves once had and filled their purses with the stock of a spell-broker too slow off his mark to have ever stood a chance. 

His carefully painted seals and runes were too fine. When Vyneisa took his arcane tongue and nailed it to the undone door, she stripped away any last traces of eloquence. Magic was rabid and raw. It was powerful, pragmatic, and that night it was hers.


	4. The Good Lady Blackbrooke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are collected short drabbles. 
> 
> Julia Blackbrooke has had two lives and in both she finds herself mired in the fate of the world. Elathus Summerkeep has never quite had the last speck of self-indulgence stripped from him, whether by poor choices, duty, tragedy or fear. Their friendship has survived death and the void, for better or worse.
> 
> Rhaelir's mind was caged for a decade while the Lich King's crown was whole. The man he was is now free of his prison. 
> 
> This chapter features Rorred, a hunter native to Northrend, who belongs to a friend.

**i.**

_ Do you remember it? The final pain after the final push. The after-death.  _

None of them needed to sleep. In Arthas' service she had whipped soldiers for the gall to do so. It was the only thing left to call a sin. Rest was not in the terms of their unholy indenture and years later Julia still burned to know  _ why _ . There was very little to fear left in the waking world. If she slept, if she dreamed, she feared what she would see. 

_ That place between. A land built from bones. The country of conquerors. _

“We are not meant to go back there,” the old woman said, her jaw hanging by a fine thread of sinew and words curling off her scabbed tongue and into the Commander’s mind. Even in life, she must have been wizened. A witch, a shaman-mother, she couldn’t say. 

_ Torrents of sickly emerald pouring through the bone-hills. Pouring down your throat. The place where they made you.  _

“I woke at Lordaeron on the same day. How long did it take?” Julia’s eyes were heavy and not from the noxious fumes that filled the vaulted chamber, leaking from the little porthole and out into the sky that Acherus loomed in. Her cloak would reek when she finally left the fetid study.

“For them to break you?” She poured her concoction into a phial and capped it. She promised it would bring dreams as surely as it would stop a beating heart. “Who can say? A moment, a year, time is not a law they are obliged to obey in the House of Rituals.” 

Bare bones scraped on the floor as the old woman hobbled to Julia’s side. Her fingers creaked as she unfolded the Knight’s gauntlet and pressed the potion carefully against her palm. 

“But plenty to ensure that the only thing you would birth again in this world would have no need to breathe.”

  
  


**ii.**

The glow of her eyes was hollow. The glacier-blue light that lit them wasn't enough to reach anything else at all. They were points in the dark, only dimming with a blink that didn't come unbidden.

Still, she could see well enough to reach out her hand and brush fingertips over the dead elf's throat. He smiled and braced a hand on the table she worked at.

"All these years and I've never seen you indulge," Rhaelir said. He had leaned down over her in the dark, unwelcome in the Commander's chamber in the lofty reaches of Acherus. Julia kept her face carefully schooled into apathy, even as she curled her fingers around his collar. "You're setting a fine example."

Rhae was different of late. Peace was a bit shoved in his mouth and he champed on it. His icy patience was put to use tormenting any he laid his eyes on. Tonight he was bold enough to decide it was her turn.

Julia clenched her fist tightly, but neither pulled nor pushed the intruder away. She stayed in her seat and gazed at the aged bruises about his neck. Had he been hung or strangled, she wondered. Had justice or revenge been his first downfall?

"There's nothing to indulge," she lied, spinning the words out as if there was even a chance they'd hide the instinct in her eyes. Of course he could see it. Of course he shared it. There was no way in this world or the next that Rhaelir didn't know how sharply she felt the need to press her hand against his throat and find out if a choking palm would fit the bill. 

"I know a dozen leaves you could take from a dozen books. All you need to do is squeeze." The high elf reached for her hand and peeled it away from his shirt, only to place it snugly on his neck for her. Julia swallowed slowly, an old reflex still within her just the same as the hunger that had been written anew. Lambs leapt up in the first moments of their lives ready to walk and knights rose again ready-educated with a thirst to do great harm. A mind kept in an icy cage had come with boons she tried not to dwell on. Freedom from fear, shame,  _ consequence. _

Julia felt her lips part. She could still taste the sweetness of giving in. Her eyes grew heavy and slender fingers flexed. 

"Leave," she whispered.

  
  


**iii.**

Julia smoothed her thumb over the edge of the cheap mirror, the rough silvered surface biting into her skin barely enough to feel. The reflections she remembered were all pink cheeks and smooth skin. The lines at the corners of her eyes that she’d half-heartedly lamented as she splashed warm water on her face every morning were still fixed there, frozen in ice, no more or less. There’d be no grey in her hair, like her father. She would never notice how much she slowly became her mother. 

Over her shoulder, some distant and fragile part of Julia expected to see him sitting up in bed and making most of the early hours full of light and empty of distraction. A different book on his table every day, his soft voice always a sure way to send her off to sleep each night. She dressed and left him devouring one page more, every morning until the last. She never relished change before.

Now there was a cabin, a sword, an empty straw bed. Grey skin. A pair of eyes cast in the wrong shade of blue. Coal-black tresses that would never see a silver strand or flower-laden braid again. 

She took the knife from the table and a fistful of hair in hand. 

**iv.**

_ In the clear air she could see him. A tall lad standing defiantly at the porch of his home as others scuttled away into the night through a last street not teeming with the dead. In the cruel way that memory wove through minds, she remembered the colourless faces of soldiers standing at the gates of another home. Larger perhaps, but that didn’t mean greater. Not to him. He was bigger than her by far and it gave him the strength to draw a sword against the once-human woman patiently burning down his happy memories.  _

_ Break him.  _

_ The echoing voice meant the flutterings of mercy that had threatened to stay her hand were whisked away like the smoke from the fire pit between them. So be it. She still so clearly recalled the silver of their steel as it met in the dying light of the fire. The whites of his eyes as he saw the advancing tide of dead at her back. The true colour of the bravery as he knew he would save more if he turned and escaped with his life, unbroken.  _

That colour was green. Green like ivy that clung stubbornly to the sides of a great pine tree. Green that made his red hair look all the more ruddy in the half-light of the morning. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep.” Rorred offered her a hand. He was still tall, vast compared to the knight he helped to her feet in the middle of the silent war camp. She left the bed roll no warmer than she found it for the tracker coming off his watch. 

“I try not to,” Julia said. 

**v.**

The sounds of the city waking were slow to reach their ship moored out in the calm harbour. There was no good place in Boralus for her soldiers to stay, rumours and old hatred and suspicion abound, so a ship was as good a home as any for dead men as the war churned onwards. Julia stood at the rail of the bow, a wolf-fur cloak she didn’t need draped around her shoulders. She furrowed her brow; it was her turn. 

“A bowl of blackberries. No sugar. Staining my tongue. Only a glass of fresh milk to wash them down.” Her voice was low and gentle, and she closed her eyes at the memory, nose wrinkling to a taste she couldn’t quite remember, but she could recall savouring it. 

“That’s good. I preferred apples, but that’s good.” Lambeth’s scarred mouth curled up with a smile. “I didn’t have a cow, either. Too rich for my blood.”

“I had a herd,” Julia tipped her chin up to the man who had died younger than her, the marks of it frozen on his face forever. “The whole village made use of the dairy. Always far too much for the estate to use on its own, it made sense to share.”

“For nought, Lady Blackbrooke? Generous.”

“For nought. It was only milk.” She had forgotten how many times they played this game. Remembering as many little things as they could, taking turns to share a memory and speak it aloud so they could thaw each one from the ice in their minds. They might wear the colours of the Alliance now, and had for years, but there was still plenty of ice left to melt. Perhaps, the commander hoped, they’d reclaim things they’d forgotten they knew at all. 

“It’s your turn, lieutenant.” She breathed deep as the breeze swept past them.

“An embrace,” Lambeth suggested after a few moments of quiet. Something he remembered and something he missed. “Greeting someone with a hug. Saying goodbye to them. Comforting them.”

Julia only nodded, fixing her eyes on the sunlight spreading over glassy water between them and the city. 

He spoke softly. “I wish everyone knew we still feel them the same.” 

**vi.**

_ It is necessary, Julia.  _

It was a gift Julia hoped had faded in time, locked in the winter of  _ then _ and not thawed into the spring of  _ now _ . She was wrong. The dead still heeded her, obeyed her, made way for their captain and kin. So few in the Ebon Blade were left with this sickly power she told herself she had no choice but to step forward. 

She swallowed the knowledge that she had always enjoyed command and never spoke it out loud. Born and raised to lead, died and raised to do it again, a constant thread through all her lives. Now, at least, Julia tried to be gentle. A hollow lie for all assembled; there was nothing gentle about this ritual, this labour. This birthing bed cradled no promises of joy. 

_ He will learn how sorely he is needed _ .

Slender hands settled on the soldier’s face. He was still warm. The axe that cleaved his throat and the madman that wielded it lay in the desert sand ten yards away. The dark skies overhead turned the blood black that pooled around them. Uldum rumbled, dunes singing with the anguish of the void infestation that poisoned it. Julia reached for a quiet place instead. 

She plucked the soldier from oblivion. His lips twitched, the lips that had asked her in the quiet of a night months ago to never leave him in the dark. If he had been some common ghast his eyes would have stayed dark and clouded over before the dawn. Now they spluttered like a struggling fire, igniting a cold blue and seeping their own kind of smoke as Julia pressed his soul back into the vessel it had only just vacated.

_ It must be done. _

“ _ Fuck!”  _ The soldier’s first words were graceless, but so was rebirth.   
  


**vii.**

_ "Does it look well?” Julia gingerly touched the sleeve of her dress with a fingertip, scared she might dirty the rich, cream lace. She took the moment to breathe and the silver cup of wine that was offered to her. Somewhere past the heavy velvet curtain they hid behind, the kitchens behind and the hall ahead, she heard a sturdy young voice offering blessings and prayers to her father. They watched with smothered smiles as Alan sternly bowed and turned on his heel.  _

_ “I know bait when I smell it,” the elf said. Elathus sipped from his own cup and glanced sidelong at her. “As if I would tell a bride anything but what she wants to hear on her wedding day. Besides, it looks very well. I’d sling you over my horse and whisk you away from this contract in a heartbeat if you’d only say the word.”  _

_ Julia let out a scoff that quickly melted into a chuckle. “I appreciate the jest, but I’m fine with it all. Really.”  _

_ “Who said it was a jest? That’s something we never even thought of.” He swirled his wine and raised a brow dryly. “Both our fathers would be happy. I’d be thrilled to have a wife that didn’t want anything.”  _

_ She beamed at the quel’dorei, petulant as long as she’d known him- and Julia had known him all her life. She reached for his hand and took it, and they both squeezed gently.  _

_ “But  _ I _ wouldn’t be happy. I chose this as much as my father did, I need no rescuing.”  _ _  
_ _  
_ _ Elathus’ mouth curled at the corner in a half-smile. “What if I do?” He sighed. “If I get sick too sick of my father there’s always the Church, I suppose.”  _

_ Julia barked out a laugh before she could slap a hand over her mouth, a cluster of guests looking around for the source of the sound.  _

_ “You in the Church! I rue the day.”  _

**viii** .

She took up too much space in the doorway to push past. If she really wanted to, they both knew, she could keep him from leaving entirely. Instead Julia watched the precise flurry of motion with a sneer as the Ambassador gathered his things, sealed papers and bolted luggage shut. 

“You’ve never been a coward.” The words dripped from her mouth with palpable disdain. Her gauntlet closed on the doorframe and gripped it tightly. “Why the hell are you starting now?” 

“I’m young,” Elathus snapped, closing a crate with too much force and wincing. He slapped a hand to his side and cursed, a deep stain beginning to leak through from the wound below. He turned away too late to hide his bloody palm from the knight. “I’m allowed to be changeable.” 

“Don’t make light of this!” Her raised voice was nothing to the tearing of timber in her hand as she wrenched a splintering chunk from the door frame without intending to. “Look me in the eye and tell me why you’re running away. You know better than anyone what is happening in Uldum.” 

Elathus straightened his back, still not much taller than her anyway, and looked over his shoulder at the commander demanding an answer. He schooled his face into something cold and neutral. 

“It’s  _ because _ I know what’s happening out there. It is someone else’s turn to charge headlong into the void this time and don’t try to shame me with how much you’ve done over the years.” He held up a finger and cut her off before she could even reach the thought herself. “We both fought the Old Horde and the Legion, twice or more.” 

She dropped the shard of carpentry and added it to the mess on the floor. Julia bit back the chastisement. She might have more creases around her eyes, but she couldn’t deny the truth he spoke. Julia remembered what it was like to feel anything other than cold rage as she simmered in the doorway and Elathus threw a cloak around his shoulders at last. 

“There’s a peace treaty on the table and that means whatever else happens, I’ve done my fucking best. If this pitiable rock we’re on is rotting from the inside out, I am  _ not  _ going to spend my last days choking on the dark  _ again _ .” He moved tentatively towards the door where Julia remained immobile. They both took deep breaths.

“Where will you go?” Julia hissed. “Back to Silvermoon? To spend your family’s money and strive for nothing? Care only for  _ yourself _ ? I thought what happened to you changed all that.”

The elf’s face fell. 

“I’m sorry that you can’t run away from the things that hurt you,” he said. She’d never know if his palm was warm or not as it settled on her armoured shoulder. “But I finally can.” 

Julia tore her gaze away from him and to the window, not trusting calm words to find their way out before the bile. She stepped aside. 

  
  



	5. It Probably Won't Be Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ballard Duskwing is an intrepid archaeologist and sometime professor. He teaches on the nature of titans, and learns plenty from them too. Erokar Hale is a lich man with a plan. He will need all the eyes and ears he can get in the turmoil to come. 
> 
> This piece takes place during the Shadowlands pre-launch Scourge incursions.
> 
> CW: gore, injury description

The gentle breeze of Silvermoon's perennial spring air drifted through the open windows. Elsewhere in the world the first snows of the coming winter had begun to dust hills and rooftops; there only motes danced in the still light. The last shafts of the evening sun were faint and cool. Ballard's office was dim and no sounds of waiting students bustled beyond the door that stood ajar. Drafted letters were strewn about, their final iterations sent away and spilled sealing wax had cooled in drops on the desk, proof of their postage. 

No shadows had been cast on the cluttered wall of maps for a week or more. Not since the visitor had crept through the door and, already inside, disturbed the professor with knock to the table littered with findings brought back from the scourge-ridden north. 

"Good morning," the robed mage said. 

Ballard's start wasn't graceful, the quill pen in his hand jolting across the page and ruining the next of his letters. His surprise was only double when his eyes tracked up the mage's tall form and he took in the sight of a human man standing in his Reliquary office, there in the heart of Silvermoon, plain as the day. 

With a flustered clearing of his throat Ballard scribbled out the ruined ink on his paper, knowing the words had barely been good enough anyway.  _ I am wretched with knowing, _ he wrote and now erased,  _ that I won't see you again until I return from the North. _ Wretched wasn't nearly enough to describe the ache in his heart. He gathered the paper in his fist and crushed it into a ball. 

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure--" Ballard narrowed his eyes at the man. He was tall, broad, and impeccably dressed in vibrant blue robes. Cool air had rolled in behind him through the open door; when Ballard spoke, his breath almost misted. Perhaps he was Kirin Tor, or else some resident who'd stayed long past the elves' parting with the Alliance. "I'm afraid I'm a little busy this afternoon, I'm preparing to leave. Can I direct you to someone who can help you…" 

Ballard trailed off questioningly and waited for the introduction. The mage smiled beneath his sharply groomed beard.

"No, that's quite alright. You're precisely who I need," he said, tipping his chin towards the table covered with cloth and holding sundered chunks of armour. Salvage from the frozen citadel sent back in haste. Ballard's note cards littered the surface around them.  _ Valkyr, _ he had written.  _ Older? More recent? Altered motifs, a cousin culture. Evolved?  _

"I'm Magister Hale," the mage answered. He offered the professor his hand across the desk. "You're leaving shortly?" 

Ballard glanced to the door, sure that he had locked it. He took Magister Hale's hand and shook it. "Today in fact. I'm sure you know what's happening in Northrend. I leave this afternoon." 

When he drew his hand back, Magister Hale did not let go. Ballard frowned and tugged sharply. 

"That's good to hear. Perfect, even," the mage remarked. His hold was iron and he gripped Ballard's hand so hard the half-elf's breath caught. Magister Hale forced the back of the professor's hand upwards, exposing it. "If you'll allow me." 

Ballard did not  _ allow  _ him, but he couldn't break free of the skeletal fingers clamped around his hand where there had been human flesh a blink before. He was only able to stare wide-eyed as a jagged green blade, wreatched in wisps of green-grey vapour, was drawn across his skin and cut shallowly up the back of his arm.

"What the hell are you doing!" Magister Hale released him as blood welled up from the wound and Ballard stumbled back out of his chair away from the blade that melted into the air like smoke. 

"Hell is not what we're  _ doing _ , Ballard," the Magister corrected him cooly. Warm red blood steamed as it spilled through the cold air, staining Ballard's clothes and slipping between his fingers. Where it was about to drop to the ground, it simply didn't. It drifted instead; Ballard watched, frozen in morbid disbelief as his blood flowed through the air and pooled into the Magister's waiting palm. "It's where we're  _ going _ ."

He closed his fist and the orb of blood he held simply vanished. "That should be enough, thank you."

"Are you  _ insane _ ? Get out!" Ballard lifted his bloody palm and dove for the sword propped against the wall. 

As his fingers closed around the hilt he heard the Magister chuckle heartily. Ballard felt the sickening turn in his stomach, the telltale sensation of magic taking hold. The portal swirled open beneath his feet, capturing his momentum and swallowing him whole, sword and all. 

Magister Hale turned the portal in the air with languid flick of his wrist. His voice followed Ballard through the window in the air. "Don't worry, Ballard. It probably won't be forever."


End file.
